“Remember your why.” Arguably, these are the three worst words any administrator or professional development trainer has uttered in the past decade. It is usually preceded by a half hour of nonstop motivational quotes, which is itself preceded by an upbeat song and a Post-it Notes-heavy ice breaker. Despite feeling as professionally developed as we care to become, we are dragged from room to room, asked to “dig deep,” “dissect the data,” and of course—"remember your why.”
Remember your why is patronizing for several reasons, least of which is that it usually comes from someone in an expensive suit outearning everyone in the room for two hours of quotable nothingness. The speakers (and the people hiring them) are presumably well-intentioned but are met with resistance because we, unlike them, are still in the classroom. We haven’t forgotten anything.
According to a 2023 research report published by the Rand Corp., teachers are not only underpaid, but “teachers work more hours per week, on average, than [other] working adults—53 hours versus 46.”
If these numbers are to be believed (and teachers are not in the business of denying facts here, so, yes, I believe them), over the course of a 190-day school year, the average teacher spends 1,908 hours working. How can anyone forget 1,908 hours of why?
Year after year, we read about teachers digging into their own coffers to provide for students, teachers putting in hours of unpaid work long after the day has ended to serve students. In the most gruesome cases, teachers have laid down their lives for students. These are all systemic failures.
Remember your why suggests that teachers are so far removed from whatever path brought us here that we cannot see the mission. It suggests that we see our students as data points to be mined, worthy only so far as they can improve our school’s report card.
Remember your why pretends that if we are only reminded about what we have presumably lost, gaps will close and minds will broaden. It is akin to the emotionally manipulative language I’ve denounced in the past, the smug cousin of “teaching is a work of heart.”
It is a phrase uttered as a weapon against teachers rather than a defense for teaching. It stifles conversation and it encourages teachers to accept a sense of powerlessness.
Teachers exist in the why. The hungry why. The attention-starved why. The illiterate why. The left-behind why. Politicians bloviate about us from the clouds while we, the working public, are here on earth. Teaching. Remembering.
Instead of our why, I want my fellow teachers to remember this: You are more powerful than you think. Teaching is a human profession, but it is a profession all the same. Your job is necessary. You are essential. You fulfill a need; not because of altruism but because somewhere in your journey, you stepped into a space that brought you to the school. You have real power—to change lives, to guide—and, collectively, to exercise good trouble and create lasting change.
The loss of a few teachers can weaken a school; the action of thousands of teachers can change the nation. You, a teacher, are exactly that powerful. And that power requires action and solidarity.
Increasingly, we teach in the chaos of the absurd: We exist at the whims of billions of dollars poured into initiatives that leave many children behind and few succeeding. We ask students to stand and pledge allegiance to a country that does not have allegiance to its own constitution, let alone a flag. We require students to defend conclusions based on textual evidence while we live in a country where those in charge prefer internet “research” and YouTube conspiracy videos over science.
You are still there existing in the why—and the people urging you to reconnect with it are not.
It is they who must remember a different why: why teachers are needed and why this entire experiment is nothing without us.
